MELBOURNE - Rafael Nadal is certainly not treating tennis’ next generation well at the Australian Open. Add 20-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas to the list of youngsters Nadal has bullied on his way to his fifth final at Melbourne Park and 25th at all Grand Slam tournaments.

Nadal needed all of 11 minutes Thursday to show Tsitsipas — and everyone else — that the kid’s upset of Roger Federer was not going to be replicated on this night. Not even close. Breaking Tsitispas in the match’s third game and then another five times Thursday, while never facing a single break point himself until the very last game, Nadal won 6-2, 6-4, 6-0.

“It felt like a different dimension of tennis completely,” said the 14th-seeded Tsitsipas, a blank expression on his face. “He gives you no rhythm. He plays just a different game style than the rest of the players. He has this, I don’t know, talent that no other player has. I’ve never seen a player have this. He makes you play bad.”

It was the same straight-set, no-contest treatment Nadal gave to 19-year-old Alex de Minaur in the third round and 21-year-old Frances Tiafoe in the quarterfinals. Asked if he was trying to make a statement with the way he soundly defeated these up-and-coming talents, Nadal said: “They don’t need any message, no. They are good. They’re improving every month. So it’s always a big challenge to play against them.”

Tsitsipas’ run to the first major semifinal of his nascent career was most notable for the way he beat 20-time major champion Federer in the fourth round, saving 12 of 12 break points across four sets and 3 hours, 45 minutes. But the left-handed Nadal was a much more difficult puzzle to solve. On Sunday, the 32-year-old Spaniard will try to earn his second Australian Open title — he won the hard-court event in 2009 — and his 18th Slam trophy. That final will come against either top-seeded Novak Djokovic or Lucas Pouille, who meet Friday.

A title would make Nadal only the third man in the sport’s history to win each Grand Slam title at least twice, joining retired Australian greats Rod Laver — a front-row spectator Thursday night in an arena named for him — and Roy Emerson. Even though he is wearing a strip of tape over an abdominal muscle that troubled him in the past, Nadal has been terrific in Australia, winning all 18 sets he has played. “I’m really disappointed today,” Tsitsipas said, adding that he hoped to “prove myself a little bit more, not let him dominate the entire match. Just felt wrong.”

Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka never made it past the fourth round at any of the first 10 Grand Slam tournaments of her career. Now, still just 21, she’s suddenly on the verge of a second consecutive major championship. Osaka moved one victory away from adding the Australian Open trophy to the one she collected 4½ months ago at the U.S. Open, using her smooth power to produce 15 aces and groundstroke winners at will while beating Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the semifinals Thursday.

“I just told myself to regroup in the third set and just try as hard as I can,” said Osaka, who saved four break points in the last set and finished the match with an ace at 115 mph (185 kph). “I was so scared serving second serves. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Please!” Osaka said. “Somehow, I made it. I guess that’s experience.”

A day after erasing four match points and a 5-1 deficit in the third set to stun Serena Williams in the quarterfinals, Pliskova could not produce the same kind of comeback. Instead it is Osaka, the only Japanese woman to win a major singles title, who will face two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova on Saturday. The winner will rise to the top of the WTA rankings for the first time; Osaka is currently No. 4, Kvitova is No. 6.

Osaka’s fourth-round finish at Melbourne Park a year ago was her best showing at a major until last year’s U.S. Open, where she outplayed Williams in the final.

A victory over Kvitova would make Osaka the first woman to win two Slams in a row since Williams claimed four straight across the 2014-15 seasons.

Two years ago, Kvitova missed the Australian Open, just weeks after her left hand was stabbed by an intruder at her home in the Czech Republic. Back at her best during what she calls her “second career,” Kvitova surged to a 7-6 (2), 6-0 victory against 35th-ranked American Danielle Collins after Rod Laver Arena’s retractable roof was closed as the temperature soared toward 105 degrees (40 Celsius).

Kvitova reached her first major final since the December 2016 knife attack that led to hours of surgery on the hand she holds her racket with — and first since winning Wimbledon for the second time in 2014. “I didn’t know even if I (was) going to play tennis again,” Kvitova said. “It’s been a long journey.”